


Waiting For You

by learningthetrees



Category: Slow West (2015)
Genre: F/M, Follow-up, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-14 07:38:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10531893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learningthetrees/pseuds/learningthetrees
Summary: Rose, Silas, and what happens while they're waiting.A two-part follow-up toWhen to Bluster, When to Hush.





	1. Chapter 1

**Part I. Rose**

_Patience is a virtue_.

Rose tried to remind herself of this, but it was never something she’d been very good at. Waiting. She tended to jump into things, acting without thinking or rushing in blindly or taking wild chances because it was easier than being patient.

 _Patience is a virtue_.

But as she watched Silas pack his bag, illuminated only by the golden light of the lamp in the center of the room, Rose was sure this was a virtue she’d never have possession of.

He stowed another box of ammunition in his pack and then looked up, catching her eye. She looked away quickly, but he’d already noticed.

“What is it?” He asked. He could tell when there was something brewing in her mind — a secret she was holding inside. He was too observant in that way.

Rose sat up, her back against the pillow, and laid her hands in her lap. “Nothing, it’s just —” She knew if she said what she wanted to say, it would sound silly. She said it anyway. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Rose, you know I —”

“I know you have to,” she countered before he could finish. “I know you’re providing for us. I understand that. But the thought of you being gone for so long…” She glanced down. "I don't know how I can manage it. The waiting."

Silas had made a few short hunting trips in the last year and a half — excursions no longer than a day, when he’d return with a few rabbits or squirrels. But pickings in the valley were slim, he said, and in order for him to find something worthwhile, something that would feed them for a long while, he’d have to travel farther in search of it.

His eyes softened, followed by the slant of his shoulders and the arch of his brow. Silas set down his pack and crossed the room to their bed, the footfalls of his stocking feet muffled on the floorboards. He settled down on the edge of the bed, a gentle hand on Rose’s cheek.

“I don’t want to go either,” he said, his voice low. He rubbed a thumb under her eye. “But I’ll be all right.”

“I know you will,” said Rose, her voice adamant. “Remember what you promised me?”

“I do.”

It seemed like ages ago now — and it had been nearly two years — but Rose remembered the moment as if it had just happened. She revisited it often in her dreams — those that weren’t troubled by memories of the past.

_What if I promise you I won't let anything happen to me?_

And that promise, however impossible it may be to keep, had been enough for Rose to accept the possibility that Silas wanted her, and everything that came along with her. She clung to that promise because it was the only certainty — however small — she had.

Silas closed the space between them with a kiss, and as she wrapped her arms around him, holding him close, Rose tried not to imagine the days ahead. She allowed herself only the feeling of being here with him now, and when the lamp burned out, they melted into each other in darkness.

Rose wondered if perhaps when she woke, he would have changed his mind. But she knew him better than that, and when she felt the bed shift beside her, she opened her eyes. It was still dark — he wanted to get an early start. He got dressed, shouldered his pack, and knelt beside the bed, running a hand lightly over her hair.

“You’ll come back to me,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“I promise.” He touched his lips to her forehead, a soft kiss, but before he could stand up, Rose brought her lips crashing down on his. It was a kiss she wanted desperately never to end, but eventually, he pulled away, cheeks red and lips swollen.

Rose closed her eyes as he stood up and crossed to the door, and did not open them again until she’d heard the door shut behind him.

 _Patience_ — she tried to remind herself, but she could barely finish the axiom without scoffing inwardly.

No one had ever accused her of being patient.

As the day began in earnest, other responsibilities attempted to overtake Rose’s thoughts. She tended to the orphans, making sure they were clean and fed and relatively entertained. There was also the firewood she needed to gather, the food she needed to preserve, the various articles of Silas’s clothing that had been torn or tattered that she needed to repair. Maybe she’d even try her hand at making butter again — anything to distract her mind.

But when she stepped outside of the cabin to fetch water from the well, she found herself staring out at the horizon. It was a reflex — she knew it was too soon. But the mere thought of Silas’s return preoccupied her, and she paused, eyes searching.

_I promise you I won't let anything happen to me._

The house felt small and silent that night, the bed too big and cold. When Eva peeked her head out from the bedroom, muttering something about bad dreams and something else in Swedish, Rose lifted up the quilt and the girl joined her. After a while, Eva’s breathing became slow and steady, but Rose was not sure how long she slept. In her mind, she was already calculating the days left until he returned.

The following days were hardly any easier. With each sunset and sunrise, Rose felt herself becoming a little less certain, and even the memory of Silas’s promise did little to bolster her. More and more often, she stood on the porch, staring across the plain, willing him to appear.

 _He said three days, maybe four_.

_I promise you._

_Patience_.

The children must have sensed her impatience, because they worked to appease her — listening and obeying at her first request — although they watched her with sad eyes, and Rose had to wonder if they knew what she was really thinking. That perhaps, it wasn’t a matter of waiting. That perhaps, Silas may not come back at all.

Rose couldn’t help but continue to count the days. Six, seven, eight.

She felt a hollowness as she lay down in bed that night. Sleep had continued to elude her, and tonight was no exception. Whenever her eyes drifted shut, she heard admonishments in her mind. She shouldn’t have asked him to promise. She shouldn’t have believed it. She shouldn’t have fallen in love with him.

The clomp of footsteps on the porch jerked her out of her half-sleep, and Rose was already reaching for the pistol beside the bed — it was second nature, automatic. She cocked it and pointed it at the door.

And when it swung open to reveal the familiar figure of Silas, albeit grimier and with a thicker beard, Rose let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a shriek. She set aside the pistol and launched herself into his arms, and for a moment, they were both breathing so heavily that they couldn’t speak. Then, Rose’s lips were all over his cheeks, his mouth, his neck.

Silas chuckled. “You just couldn’t be patient, could you?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Part II. Silas**

For some reason, Silas kept thinking of Jay. And it wasn’t thoughts of the boy’s wistfulness that returned to him, or his incessant questions and keen observations, or the way he managed to get under Silas’s skin with just a look.

It was more of a feeling.

The feeling of sadness and relief and a touch of pride when Jay shot the Swedish woman. The flare of protectiveness in Silas’s chest when Payne tried plying the boy with absinthe. The selfless foolishness when Silas rode across the valley toward almost certain death.

And the feeling of utter nothingness when he saw what had become of Jay.

It had been nearly a year since he’d met and lost Jay, but the memories didn’t fade. If anything, they became stronger and more frequent as the months passed by, as the days stretched longer and the orphans grew taller and Rose’s belly grew rounder — and Silas couldn’t figure out why.

When he wasn’t constructing an addition to the small cabin or working their expanding crops or tending to the orphans when Rose was indisposed, Silas’s mind returned to Jay. It was unbidden and unwelcome, the intrusion of a moment since passed by. The hoofbeats of Jay riding up beside him, asking him why he was headed west. The smell of the soap as he lathered up the boy’s cheeks in preparation for a shave.

The feeling, however faint, of failure.

As Silas waited for what was to come, he revisited the past more and more often, in search of the feelings some kid had stirred up in him. Why?

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Jay — sure, he’d never admit it out loud, not even to Rose, but the boy had meant something to him. When he’d seen Jay sitting propped up, ashen and lifeless as the smoke from the gunfight settled, a sudden bout of grief had struck him in the pit of his stomach, nearly knocking the wind out of him. And perhaps he hadn’t realized it then, but it was as if all the hope that Silas tried to dampen, the possibility of love and life that Jay had reminded him of, had died with him.

 _Time heals all wounds_. Silas had heard the platitude more times than he cared to remember. After the deaths of both his parents, it was muttered to him by strangers, like it would make a difference. But with all the time that had passed since Jay had died, the wound only continued to ache.

And as Silas considered the future, it pained him even more.

 _There isn’t enough time_ , he thought more than once. If only he could stretch the days out longer, push the inevitable further off, extend the wait until he was ready. There wasn’t enough time to sow and reap the crops before they spoiled on their stalks. There wasn’t enough time to construct the new room before the baby arrived. And there wasn’t enough time to forget Jay. Wait. Just wait.

He’d done everything he could — or at least, he thought he had. At the time, he’d been so sure of himself. Keeping Jay away from Payne and the Rosses, just until Silas could sort everything out, had been the clearest choice, the best choice. Silas had considered the possibilities, weighing them with everything he knew about Payne and the rest of the scum of the earth, and had settled on this course of action.

But he’d been wrong. And Jay — headstrong, after Silas’s own heart — had paid the price.

Silas lay awake, as he did often, long after the candle had spluttered out, staring into the darkness with Rose’s breathing a steady rhythm beside him. He thought about what he could have done instead. He could have waited for Payne, reasoned with him. He could have formed a plan with Jay, some sort of diversion. He could have scouted out the valley for other bounty hunters — because of course there would be more, and why didn’t he think of that then? He could have taught Jay what to do, he could have told him not to rush into things, he could have been there when he —

Silas rolled out of bed, nearly heaving the contents of his stomach onto the floor. He stumbled to the door, and when he sucked in the cool night air in long, shuddering breaths, it was almost enough to relieve the whirling thoughts plaguing him like a fever. But not quite.

He’d failed Jay then. Despite all the feelings of protection and pride and — hell, why not say it? — caring, Silas had make a mistake, and Jay was now dead. And now the days were creeping onward, as much as Silas willed them not to, until there was a new complication — a wonderful, terrifying complication — that would rely on him far more than Jay ever did.

“Silas?” Rose’s voice was soft and sleepy. Silas turned to see her hovering in the doorway, arms crossed over her round middle.

“Sorry I woke you,” he said. He nodded toward the house. “You should get some sleep.”

But she didn’t listen to him, and God love her for that. Rose crossed the porch to stand beside him, running one hand lightly over his back. “Something’s bothering you,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. Much like Jay, she was a little too perceptive for comfort — although, to be fair, Silas wasn’t exactly hiding it. “Is it the baby?” Her voice dropped, and when Silas glanced over at her, he saw her face had fallen, readying herself for the disappointment of his answer.

“No,” he hastened to reply. “It’s not that at all — it’s just —” How could he say it? How could he put into words the fear he was living in? How the past kept coming back to haunt him, reminding him of his failings and showing him he might very well fail again? Silas cleared his throat and crossed his arms, gazing out across the dark field, which was bathed in a blue hue from the obscured moon. “What if I’m not a good father?”

Rose’s hand on his back stilled, and now Silas braced himself for her response. She would say something silly and inconsequential like it didn’t matter, he would learn, everyone has these fears.

But instead of reciting some empty words, Rose just chuckled. Silas looked over at her, eyes narrowed. Somehow, she could find humor in his fears? “What’s so funny?”

“You’re already a father,” Rose said, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. “I’ve seen the way you are with Eva and Jan. You care about them, you look after them, you dote on them —”

That was taking it a bit far. “I don’t _dote_ —” 

“And I know you were as much a father to Jay as he ever had.”

Any retort Silas had died on his lips. “What do you mean?”

“Lord Cavendish died when Jay was a baby. He never knew him — and to hear people speak of him, that was probably a good thing.” Rose sighed. “At least when he had you, he had someone.”

Silas knew this should have given him comfort, but it only made him feel worse. “It’s my fault Jay’s dead,” he said softly.

Rose scoffed. “No, it’s _my_ fault Jay’s dead.” He looked over at her, and her eyes softened when she saw the hurt on his face. She rubbed a hand over his back again.

“It was in his nature,” she said, “to be so caught up in his passions that he didn’t give a second thought to anything going wrong. He was pure optimism.” A ghost of a smile trailed over her lips. “And that has nothing to do with you. You cared so much that you were willing to risk your life for someone you didn’t even know.”

Rose brought her lips to his cheek, entwined her fingers in his, and led him back inside. And when Silas closed his eyes, he wasn’t barraged by images of Jay’s face, alive and then dead, as he usually was.

Instead, the dream that greeted him was one he’d had before. He was seated across the table from Rose when an infant’s cry rang out and she retrieved the fussing child from a bassinet, rocking him in her arms. When Silas looked away from the mother and child, he saw Jay standing by the door.

He was smiling.

It was only a few weeks later when Rose’s labor began, and Silas took turns sitting at her side and pacing on the front porch. Day turned to night, and the only fear in his mind was that something had gone wrong — that Rose would be hurt, that the baby wouldn’t make it. There was no room for anything else.

So when dawn broke and Rose heaved one final push, the sound of a baby crying had never sounded so sweet to Silas. And when he held the baby boy in his arms for the first time, Silas had another odd feeling — that Jay would be somehow proud.

“Hello there,” he muttered to his son, who paused in his crying for a moment to survey the man holding him. “I’m glad to meet you. We’ve been waiting for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Have a request? Want to talk writing/Slow West? I'm over at [ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com](http://www.ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com)!


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